For the first time this decade, Iowa State is in a position late in its season to win more games than it has lost.

It will need to defeat both the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday and the Kansas Jayhawks next weekend in Lawrence to make the winning season official, but both games are extremely winnable.

So, will our hometown Cyclones be bowl-bound for the first time since the late ’70s?

Absolutely not.

In a couple weeks, the NCAA’s decision-makers will convene to arbitrarily decide who keeps playing and who goes home. For ISU to be one of the lucky few would be an upset of astounding proportions.

And the saddest thing is, it has nothing to do with the team on the field.

The Cyclones clearly have the talent to win their last two games. In fact, after all of the heartbreak of this ’99 season, they probably also have enough pent-up frustration and hunger to push them over the edge.

But even if they win both of these game — even if they hammer the Jayhawks and the Sooners — they’ll be locked out come December and January.

So, why won’t ISU make a bowl game, even with a 6-5 record?

Well, the official version will go something like this …

For starters, the Cyclones’ non-conference slate reads like a 2A high school schedule. Sure they started the season at 3-0, but their opponents were doormats.

When ISU hit the Big 12, its true colors came shining through. It slid past the conference whipping boys in Missouri and Kansas and only managed one respectable conference victory, at home vs. the mediocre Sooners.

Of course, such an analysis is painfully short-sighted and unfair.

The Cyclones’ pre-season was weak, but they did what they needed to do to win each game.

Wins over Missouri and Kansas don’t seem like much, but any Big 12 road victory is worthy of mention, as is any victory over the Sooners.

The biggest factor that the NCAA will not have to look at is the number of painful near-misses the Cyclones have suffered through this year. They’ve lost five games, but they’ve only really been beaten once.

Besides their shellacking at the hands of Nebraska, the Cyclones have, for the most part, outplayed every opponent this year. Of course, true to ISU form, they’ve also choked away most of those games.

The truth is, though, it doesn’t take much imagination to put the Cyclones at 10-1 on the year.

Even at 6-5, a Big 12 team with a winning record clearly deserves to play on.

So why won’t they?

I don’t think you really want to know.

The fact of the matter is, we can’t blame this one on Dan McCarney’s coaching or sub-standard play or any sort of curse or lack of ability.

If you really want to see the potential cause of ISU’s downfall this season, Cyclone fans, you’ll have to take a look in the mirror.

The NCAA will do everything in its power to deny a bowl bid to a team with the pathetic support that ISU receives.

If nobody likes the team, and nobody’s willing to support the team, college football sure as hell isn’t going to showcase the team during bowl week.

You’re always eager to cheer on the Cyclones against Iowa, but after that, you’re nothing short of disgraceful.

You barely clear 40,000 fans to cheer for a 3-0 team as it kicks off conference play, and you can’t even approach that figure when your team is 4-2 or 4-3.

The hooligans over at Johnson County Country Club aren’t very smart and they aren’t very talented. In fact, the Hawkeye football team is one of the worst in college sports.

But they still bring in over 65,000 people per home game.

If the Hawkeyes could beat themselves in six intra-squad scrimmages, the NCAA would pencil them in on New Year’s Eve.

But not the Cyclones, with their empty stadiums and lackluster support.

So when 30,000 of you turn out on Saturday for the Oklahoma game, it may not be a bad idea to root against your alma mater.

Because if they do manage to win their last two games in ’99, the blame is no longer theirs.

It’s all yours.